From Biology To Aromatherapy
Biology comprises all disciplines dedicated to the exploration of living organisms. Ernst Mayr
In a previous chapter we explored how plants developed substances directed at the world around them. In this chapter we shall explore how mammals answered and how the back and forth of evolution creates a dense web of interactions, the fabric of life! And we shall see the implications of that for the practice of plant medicine.
The Evolution of Liver detoxification Enzymes
Understanding how liver detoxification enzymes - and with them the capacity to remove substances foreign to the body. - arose is instructive . It illustrates why benefits from the plants secondary metabolites are so diverse and how we derive benefits we may not even recognize.
As humans spread out over planet Earth, they were continuously forced to adapt to new and unfamiliar environments and as a consequence to new unfamiliar food. Plants contain digestible nutrients such as proteins, carbohydrates, fats, and oils, as well as indigestible secondary metabolites (alkkaloids, flavonoids, pjhenylpropanes, and terpenes-essential oils - among many others). Originally these secondary metabolites were more or less toxic to the mammalian organism.
Over time the mammals adjusted by developing an enzymatic machinery capable of processing these indigestible components, so they could safely be eliminated . To emphasize the point essential oils are among the native agents responsible for the development of the liver detoxification enzymes and especially those with the ability to remove lipophilic xenobiotics (lipophilic substances foreign to the body).
Thus the system of cytochrome P45 enzymes (CYP) - as the various Phase Liver detoxification enzymes are also called-developed to its current state.
CYPs are usually described as "liver detoxification systems" or "chemical defense against xenobiotic compounds of our environment." Today "xenobiotic compounds of our environment" include drugs and environmental pollutants.
One a modest set of only a few cytochromes, is now an assortment of at least twenty commonly employed cytochromes with genes in our DNAS coding for about forty more, which apparently are not utilized .
It is clear that CYPs first evolved to detoxify dietary and endogenous products. The fact that they also detoxify drugs and pollutants proves the success of the "nonselective " strategy.
Reference: The Healing Intelligence of Essential Oils: The Science of Advanced Aromatherapy: Kurt Schnaubelt, Ph.D.
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